France makes a new push to tempt bankers to Paris post-Brexit

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s prime minister on Monday renewed a push to tempt bankers to Paris after Britain leaves the European Union by pledging to temporarily exempt expats from paying into state pension schemes and making more places available in bilingual schools.

French President Emmanuel Macron reviews troops before delivering his New Year wishes to the Armed Forces on the French war ship Dixmude at the Naval base in Toulon, France, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

France has already announced measures to cut labour costs to make Paris more attractive to the banking sector post-Brexit following the election of President Emmanuel Macron, who has made labour rules more flexible and cut wealth tax.

Now EU expatriates in France will be able to opt out of compulsory contributions to the state pension scheme which make up about 2.3 percent of an employee’s gross salary.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told investors that there would be 1,000 places available in the Paris region’s multilingual schools next September, while three new multilingual high schools would be created by 2021.

France would also be ready to handle disputes over financial contracts governed by British law in March with new international sections at the Paris Commercial Court and the Paris Court of Appeal, Paris Europlace financial lobby said in a statement.

“The Paris financial centre now has strong momentum to welcome companies and international investors and strengthen its leading position in post-Brexit Europe,” Gerard Mestrallet, the head of the Paris Europlace financial lobby said in a statement.

The announcement came at a highly-publicised summit on Monday of global CEOs - including Goldman Sachs’s (GS.N) Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon (JPM.N) - in Versailles, where the prime minister explained French reforms, in English, over lunch.

Macron is expected to join the more than 140 CEOs in the evening, after unveiling a 300 million euro investment by Japanese carmaker Toyota in northern France.